The Future of Faith

Tonight, in putting my one and a half year old son to bed, after saying our prayer and singing our song, as I prepared to blow out the candle, I was thanking the boy's guardian angel for guiding and protecting him, as I do each night. However, this night I had a moment of doubt, a questioning in which I said to myself, "I don't know if such a thing exists as an angel, I'm not clairvoyant or some medieval visionary, I've never had an experience of an angel." Just in this moment I heard the faintest fluttering sound. It could have been my heart beat, or the candle flickering, but I had the tangible sensation of the presence of a being, reminding me of all the times the imperceivable activities, the unseeable collection of organized and organizing forces, the majestic harmony of the workings of the cosmos, the dynamic unknowns that have come to be known as the spiritual world have revealed themselves to me and left me humbled and full of immense gratitude. I don't consider myself a person of faith. I don't prescribe to an organized religion. Though through research and experience I have come to allow for the possibility of a God or gods, or "spiritual" beings, or quantum physics, or the laws of The Force as articulated by the early Star Wars movies. Over time, allowing for the such ideas as reincarnation or benevolent and adversarial forces at work in our lives has not led me to a dogmatic belief system or a blind faith or a pretentious show of certainty. Rather, it has added a richness to my experiences and an openness to and tolerance of the beliefs of others and the vast marvel of human existence. Faith is a complex word and far too awesome of a concept to attempt to define or even describe here, but certain phenomena prevalent in our society today seem to derive from a proclamation of faith and are using it to questionable or blatantly malevolent ends. As the cultures of our globe continue to intermingle, the future may be demanding us to deepen our exploration of our beliefs, of our faith. This quest need not be in defiance of the traditions of our ancestors or in the negation of our culture. Experience, openness and serious inquiry will only serve to reveal the truths, the timeless and universal verities that lie within our practices, our sensations, our holy literature. I find it doubtful that intolerance and violence will be amongst the glittering gemstones and shimmering treasures we find as we dig deeper into the teachings of our forebears. The future is dependent on our understanding of faith and seems to be asking us to expand it into a faith in the capacities of our fellow human beings for tremendous deeds of loving communion. We can then listen for the sound of the flutter of wings that may come from our own hearts or the flickering candle flame or the wind through the windows and have faith that it is good.